tailgater wrote:A beating heart.
You can cloud the issue in science, of which I am capable yet unwilling to debate.
Life is more than just cell activity. If you refuse to grasp this then there is no need for further discussion.
We both know a beating heart is a crappy choice. First off, that means abortions are fine up to the stage of development when a heart is formed (don't remember what week that is); secondly a heart is just a muscle. Hell, you can transplant one from one person to another and "life" hasn't changed hands. You didn't lose your own life when your original heart was taken out.
The heart, while an awesome and necessary part of our body is no more the definition of life than your liver is.
A life is much more than cell activity, however it sure as hell isn't anything imbued in a clump of cells. there is no soul, nothing outside of the chemical and electrical reactions in the brain, which don't really have any stimuli to react to until they're born. and even then they dont really become useful or interesting until they're at least 22.